


From The Outside In

by QuietHurricane



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, So so so much love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 16:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14548527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietHurricane/pseuds/QuietHurricane
Summary: Owen and Amelia's relationship through the eyes of others. Written post 14x21.TW: Brief mentions of drugs and alcohol.





	From The Outside In

**Author's Note:**

> Here is the fic I promised and who knows where the idea came from, but I took it and ran with it. There is a lot of angst, but also a lot of love, and definitely a happy ending.

When she first starts falling for the man, she panics. She flails in the water as she drowns. Drowns in her feelings, her affection for this man, her new boss, her brother’s best friend. 

 

She’s terrified. She’s vulnerable. But she’s also falling in love. 

 

And it’s beautiful. And pure. And filled with something that feels an awful lot like hope. Hope that she had thought she’d lost forever.

 

It doesn’t take long for them to have their first kiss. And not long after that, to spend the night together. For her stuff to begin commingling with his. Her toothbrush to find its place at his sink. For his shirts to be in her laundry. For them to spend almost all their free time together.

 

It doesn’t take much time at all. And she worries, she really does, because if she feels so comfortable with him, so in love with him, after just a few months, then where will it end? How fast will they move forward? And, when it eventually all crashes down on top of her, how far deep will she already be? How will she ever survive it? 

 

But she tells Derek anyway. He tells her to love him anyway. 

 

So she does. And she hopes. She hopes to whatever karmic power or God or universe there is looking out for her, that this love never ends.

 

* * *

 

 

Meredith doesn’t see it. She doesn’t see Amelia as anything more than destruction, as the little sister she never wanted, as Cristina’s replacement and Derek’s replacement and a sore representation of both. She just doesn’t see it.

 

And it hurts. It really does. Because doesn’t she see how Amelia is falling apart? How she’s shredding her heart by trying to keep Owen at a distance? Because she messes everything up. Because she’s been here before. It has ended badly before.

 

But damn if she isn’t trying to protect him.

 

He’s not someone she sleeps around with. He never was. And for Meredith to not see that, not get that, it hurts. 

 

And she thinks, no, she believes, that Meredith is right. Maybe she is just destruction and pain and suffering of the worst kind. Maybe her and Owen aren’t meant to be anything more than friends. 

 

* * *

 

 

April, however, does see it. She sees it in the way the assured trauma surgeon is a little less confident now, a little more hesitant. He stumbles on his words and backtracks when he talks to Amelia. It’s cute. Other people would have said it was because he’s been hurt before. Felt pain before. Lost his ex-wife before.

 

But she knows it’s more than that. 

 

She sees how Amelia makes him calmer. The tension in his shoulders is gone now. His voice is more level now. His rage more controlled now.

 

And even though she doesn’t know Amelia all that well, she sees the passion, the intimacy with Owen, that runs through her guarded eyes when the two speak, when all she used to see there was pain and longing. Two things all too familiar for April, all too clear in Amelia’s eyes, now replaced by joy and love and laughter.

 

So she knows it is more. That Owen and Amelia are more. They are meant to be more.

 

* * *

 

 

Her mom doesn’t see it. She tries to soften the blow but the  _ Are you drunk?  _ and  _ Are you using? _ and  _ Why are you rushing into things?  _ wound her. Because this is her mother. The only family she has left. But all her mother sees is a wild teenager with a flair for the dramatic and the dangerous. All she asks about is where her sweet five-year-old went. The young girl who sat in her lap and treated the world with such care. Amelia bites her tongue and Amelia swallows a sob because that girl was gone the minute those men came into her dad’s store. 

 

But god is she trying to bring her back. And Owen does that. He really does. So why can’t her mother see that? Why can’t she have faith in her daughter? Why can’t she believe in her?

 

* * *

 

 

Maggie sees it. She sees that Amelia is happier with Owen. She sees that Amelia fights harder when she’s with Owen. She doesn’t discount herself as not being important with valid feelings when she’s with Owen. And she loves Owen for it.

 

Amelia is the sister she was always looking for. The sister who is equally brilliant and equally kind and just a little bit awkward to meet her own crazy level of awkwardness. The sister who will cry with her and fight for her and love her unconditionally. So to have Owen be there for Amelia, make her happy and keep her safe, she can’t help but love him. Love her with him.

 

She knows they need each other. She knows they love each other even in the midst of brain tumor craziness. Of fights and harsh words that can’t be taken back. She sees and she knows and she hopes for a better tomorrow because they are so much better together than apart.

 

* * *

 

 

Megan doesn’t see it. And again, it hurts. But this time, it’s more like a knife to the gut than a blow to the stomach. Because Amelia never had anything with Meredith. It had never really been in the cards. She wasn’t even speaking with Derek regularly when they got married. Meredith didn’t even know she was his sister when they got married.

 

Megan, though, there was a chance with her. She didn’t know Amelia’s past. She didn’t know it. She was the sister Amelia could finally have. One close to home, one like Addie. But life doesn’t work like that and Megan becomes another sister who hates her, who thinks very little of her. Another one who is constantly disappointed in her. Because Amelia? Amelia will never be enough. 

 

* * *

 

 

Betty sees it. She sees how people stop them on the street and coo over her son, Owen’s son, no--Owen and Amelia’s son. How they smile with pride. How everyone thinks they’re a couple, they’re parents, and, most importantly, that they’re in love.

 

She sees Owen let Amelia swipe the icing off the top of his cupcake with dirty fingers and a mischievous grin with nothing but a loving roll of his eyes.

 

She sees Amelia rub Owen’s back until the tension there dissolves, until the furrow of his brows melt away.

 

She sees the lingering glances they give each other. She sees the smiles reserved only for the two of them. She sees the teary eyes and the bleary eyes, the I-am-on-top-of-the-world-and-you-are-the-only-person-I-want-to-share-that-with eyes. 

 

So she doesn’t hope they make it. She  _ knows  _ they will make it.

 

* * *

 

 

And six months later? Six months later, they  _ do  _ make it. They wake up and they realize that their whole world lies with the other. Six months later, Owen proposes. And six months after that, they get married a second time, a better time, a forever time.

 

And all those people? Those who believed and those who doubted, they come and they smile and they stand for Amelia to walk down the aisle. Because they have seen Amelia at her best. They have seen her at her worst. They have also seen Owen at his best. And Owen at his worst. But there’s been time. There have been trials and tribulations, congratulations and tears of joy--they have seen it all now. Now, they have seen Owen and Amelia at  _ their _ best and Owen and Amelia at  _ their _ worst. They now know that even when they’re at their worst together, it’s a million times better than if they were apart. 

 

This time around, Amelia isn’t late. She doesn’t get scared. This time around, Owen doesn’t worry she won’t show. He doesn’t worry about their future.

 

This time around, everyone in the audience is smiling or crying, or some combination of both, their faces contorting strangely but full of pure and utter love. This time around, Amelia’s mom is walking her down the aisle. This time around, Owen’s sister is alive and well. This time around, love is surrounding them, untampered with by fear.

 

The first time she was right. The first time he was right. But this time? This time,  _ they  _ are right. 

This time, they are forever.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts??? Comments??? You guys are awesome!!!


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